Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Ethyl Acetate/2-Butanol as Effective Green Chromatography Solvent for Coexisting Anionic Surfactants

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Journal of Surfactants and Detergents

Abstract

Thin layer chromatography has been used for the analysis of anionic surfactants, which are common ingredients of personal care and cleaning products. From the environmental and human health points of view, emphasis has been placed on the use of safer solvents in analytical and synthetic chemical processes. In the present study, we have used 2-butanol and ethyl acetate as a green mobile phase in combination with silica gel G as a stationary phase for the separation and identification of dodecylbenzene sulfonic acid, N-lauroylsarcosine sodium salt, sodium lauryl sulfate, and dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate. The separation pattern has been presented as a densitogram. To examine the separation efficiency of the proposed thin layer chromatographic system, chromatographic parameters for separations have been calculated. To examine the effect of nature of alcohol on the mobility of surfactants, 2-butanol was substituted in the mobile phase (M 9) with other alcohols. Mobility trends of the separated surfactants have been examined in the presence of foreign organic and inorganic substances as impurities. The limits of detection for the separated surfactants have been determined. The proposed method has been successfully applied for the identification of surfactants in commercial products.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Blach AJ, Shapter JG (2014) Surfactant concentration dependent spectral effects of oxygen and depletion interactions in sodium dodecyl sulfate dispersion of carbon nanotubes. J Phys Chem B 118:6288–6296

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Karsan A, Maclaren I, Conn D, Wadsworth L (1993) An evaluation of hemoglobin determination using sodium lauryl sulfate. Am J Clin Pathol 100:123–126

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Ostroumov SA (2005) Biological effects of surfactants. CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, USA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  4. Ivankovic T, Hrenovic J (2010) Surfactants in the environment. Arh Hig Rada Toksikol 61:95–109

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Rieger M, Rhein LD (eds) (1997) Surfactants in cosmetics, 2nd edn. Marcel Dekker, New York

    Google Scholar 

  6. Mohammad A, Agrawal V (2001) Separation of amino acids on alumina layers developed with oil-in-water microemulsion. Indian J Chem A 40A:1130–1134

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Mohammad A, Iraqi E, Khan IA (2002) Use of nonionic poly(ethylene glycol) p-isooctyl-phenyl ether (Triton X-100) surfactant mobile phases in the thin-layer chromatography of heavy-metal cations. J Chromatogr Sci 40:162–169

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Touchstone JC (1992) Practice of thin layer chromatography, 3rd edn. Wiley-Inter-Science, New York

    Google Scholar 

  9. Gocan S (2002) Stationary phases for thin-layer chromatography. J Chromatogr Sci 40:538–549

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. He W, Cheng G, Zao F, Lin Y, Huang J, Shanks R (2005) Separation and identification of multicomponent mixture by thin-layer chromatography coupled with Fourier transform–infrared microscopy. Spectrochim Acta, Part A 61:1965–1970

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Dillon JT, Aponte JC, Tsai YJ, Huang Y (2012) Thin layer chromatography in the separation of unsaturated organic compounds using silver-thiolate chromatographic material. J Chromatogr A 1251:240–243

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Gwarda RL, Dzido TH (2013) Two-dimensional high-performance thin-layer chromatography of tryptic bovine albumin digest using normal- and reverse-phase systems with silanized silica stationary phase. J Chromatogr A 1312:152–154

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Dhote SS, Deshmukh L, Paliwal L (2013) Micellar chromatographic method for the separation of heavy metal ions and spectrophotometric estimation of UO2 2+ on bismuth silicate layer. Int J Chem Anal Sci 4:85–90

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Anastas PT, Warner JC (1998) Green chemistry: theory and practice. Oxford University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  15. Mohammad A, Mobin R (2015) Eco-favourable mobile phase in thin layer chromatographic analysis of surfactants: resolution of coexisting alkyl dimethylbenzyl ammonium chloride, cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide and triton X 100. Tenside Surf. Det 52:414–423

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the Department of Applied Chemistry and the University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi, for providing research and financial assistance, respectively, to both authors who are working as UGC-BSR Faculty Fellow (Prof. Ali Mohammad) and research scholar (Rizwana Mobin).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202002, India

    Ali Mohammad & Rizwana Mobin

Authors
  1. Ali Mohammad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rizwana Mobin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ali Mohammad.

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mohammad, A., Mobin, R. Ethyl Acetate/2-Butanol as Effective Green Chromatography Solvent for Coexisting Anionic Surfactants. J Surfact Deterg 19, 893–900 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11743-016-1834-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11743-016-1834-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation